We recently had the pleasure of interviewing the Regional Director of Kaplan Bath and Torquay, Mark Lloyd. He explains how we got into education, the key to success in learning and remembers the most motivated student he has ever met!
🌎Tell us about the career path that led to being Regional Principal at Kaplan🌎
I studied Economics at university, but I always liked languages. I took French and German classes at school, so after graduating I took a course to become an English teacher, then spent the next few years living and working as a teacher and academic manager in Portugal and Spain. I eventually moved back to the UK as Director of Studies at Kaplan Bath, where I still work 21 years later! In 2010 I took over as Principal, and during the pandemic in 2020 I was offered the position of Regional Principal, managing the Kaplan schools in both Bath and Torquay.
⭐What do you see as the most important components for a successful language learning experience?⭐
Over the years I’ve learned that people tend to learn a language best when they’re not actually trying to learn it. This sounds strange, but our brains are naturally very good at automatically learning languages if we give them the right opportunities to do so. This means being surrounded by the language and pushing ourselves to use it to interact with people.
👏Can you share the success story of a student who particularly stands out in your memory?👏
There have been many of course, but one specific example is a Spanish student who originally came to Bath for a two-month course in early 2018. He was in his early-fifties and a successful professional, but he was a beginner who needed to learn English because he was looking to change his job. Right from the start of his course he decided he was going to make full use of every single opportunity, which included joining every social activity or excursion even if it was something completely new to him. In the end he extended his course until the summer, then he returned after the summer and stayed for nine more months!
He is without a doubt the most motivated and enthusiastic student we have ever had, and because he was older than most of the other students, they all saw him as a ‘father figure’.
💡 Do you have any hidden talents, skills or habits that your colleagues might find surprising?💡
There is one habit I have learned over the years which has helped me enormously in my career – whenever I am offered an opportunity of any kind in my job, in my mind I immediately assume I am going to say ‘yes’. This doesn’t mean I do say ‘yes’ to everything, but it means I have to work hard to find reasons not to!
The full interview is available on the KI Language blog: https://brnw.ch/21wLiFb
#KLGSuccessStories #KaplanExperience
Head of Content and Creative at Kaplan International Languages
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